The Boy From the Woods by Harlan Coben

 

October's read was The Boy From the Woods, by Harlan Coben. This month we again attempted a hybrid meeting style of in-person at the library and also leaving the option open to join from home via Zoom. It was a smashing success all around! Thank you to everyone who attended, no matter the avenue they chose to do so. We've had excellent meeting attendance, despite the challenges we've all had to navigate, and we are truly grateful and appreciative to each of you for continuing to carving out some time for a good book discussion each month. Long live book club!

The book selection for November is The Book of Lost Friends, by Lisa Wingate. Since this last hybrid meeting went so well, the plan for the November 9th meeting is to again host the discussion both via Zoom and in person in the meeting room at the library. You are welcome to choose either avenue, but please be advised, masks will be required for anyone attending in person. Looking forward to seeing each of you real soon!
 

To the recap!

 

The man known as Wilde is a mystery to everyone, including himself. Decades ago, he was found as a boy living feral in the woods, with no memory of his past. After the police concluded an exhaustive hunt for the child's family, which was never found, he was turned over to the foster system.

Now, thirty years later, Wilde still doesn't know where he comes from, and he's back living in the woods on the outskirts of town, content to be an outcast and with few deep connections to other people.

When a local girl goes missing, famous TV lawyer Hester Crimstein--with whom Wilde shares a tragic connection--asks him to use his unique skills to help find her. Wilde must return to the community where he has never fit in, and where the powerful are protected even when they harbor secrets that could destroy the lives of millions . . . secrets that Wilde must uncover before it's too late.

In a rare and strangely welcomed way, this book was unanimously thought of as "just ok". It felt a lot like we were walking halfway into a story, from an established series, with vested characters and previous plot lines that may have helped answer some nagging questions we were left with. A member commented that it would have been nice, since the story is titled The Boy From the Woods, if  the novel would have been more about Wilde and his sorted history~ or at the very least, would have filled out his character profile a bit better. It was said, and widely agreed upon, that this book's contents felt "lazy", "disjointed" and "thrown together". We wagered that the author was possibly given a relatively short time frame to write his next book and threw this one together with whatever fodder was on the news at the time while reaching the required word limit. One member who has read a couple of Coben's previous books concurs that this isn't his best book by far.

With the exception of one member who found Hester to be a strong leading female character, her role was instead largely thought of as bothersome, and at times, unbelievable. Rola was thrown into the same mix as Hester~ who could pull up in a minivan, young children in tow, to lend a hand with an active investigation at a moment's notice? We didn't think so either. 

On a side note, sometimes when you discuss a book that the group seems to be in harmony about~ the conversation leads to other topics and ideas. This was certainly true for us this time around. I'll leave you with this bit of good humor as evidence... as the meeting was coming to a close, one member summed this discussion up perfectly~ "The best thing we can say about this book is we talked about other books during the majority of meeting."

 

Do you think we judged this book too harshly? Were we spot on? Let us know in the comments below!

 

Did you love The Boy From the Woods? Good news~ there's a sequel coming in March of 2022! Can't wait that long? We've got you covered! Fans of this book also enjoyed: The Whisper Man, by Alex North, This Tender Land, by William Kent Krueger, and A Nearly Normal Family, by N.T. Edvardsson. All of these titles are available in Viking~ reserve one today!

 

At the conclusion of every book club discussion we ask three questions and track the average answers:

Would we recommend this to another book club for discussion?
"NO"
Would we recommend this to a friend to read? 
"NO"
Rate the book 1-5 stars, with 1 being the lowest rating: 
 2 stars